Spori Art Gallery gets a little magical
- posted: 09 Oct. 2007
- scrollarts@byui.edu
Andrew Martinez / Genesis Photo
This book cover is an “un-book” created by Franson. It is a step by step guide to raising geeky children. Why a geek handbook? “You want your child to grow up to be a geek because geeks make all the money,” according to the illustration’s caption.
For all the young and young-at-heart, magic is real in the Spori Art Gallery.
The gallery is now showing Un Brella, an exhibit of illustrations created by BYU-Idaho art professor Scott E. Franson.
A large portion of the illustrations in the exhibit were taken from Franson’s recently published children’s book which is also titled Un Brella. The book is about a little girl and her adventures with a magic umbrella.
“[The little girl] realizes when she takes her umbrella and opens it up, that the weather right under the umbrella is exactly what she wants it to be,” said Brenda Benedict, the gallery manager.
Along with the little girl’s meanderings through summer (she made a snowman in her room) and winter (she wore her bright pink swimming suit and snorkel gear), there is also an assortment of what Franson calls “un-books” in the exhibit.
He explained that he participates in a weekly contest on www.illustrationfriday.com. The Web site gives a new word every Friday for illustrators to interpret.
“When I first started doing this, I was doing children’s books, and so I thought well, I’ll just come up with a book idea every week,” Franson said. “By calling them un-books, it gave me permission to do stupid things so I didn‘t have to worry about whether they would really sell or not. I could do things that were just silly.”
Silly or not, the process of making the illustrations is not an easy one. Franson said Un Brella took six months to create, and each un-book can take anywhere from one to four hours to finish.
“[The exhibit] is of extremely high quality. These are computer-generated illustrations that not very many people can do well, and [Franson] does it exceptionally well,” said Gerald Griffin, the gallery director.
Anyone interested in seeing the exhibit can visit the Spori Gallery from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. The exhibit will be shown until Oct. 26.
“It’s a great, great exhibit for BYU-Idaho students, especially potential mothers and fathers, because it’s a children’s book,” Griffin said. “One of our faculty members has written a successful children’s book, and it’s been published. It’s nice that somebody can not only be a professor, but be successful in his chosen career.” 
